Rust
by supercarXS
Summary: Stricken by a fatal infection, Max stares down the end of his life, and Furiosa refuses to leave his side.
1. Chapter 1

_I'm sorry._

 _No I'm not._

 _Gotta write the sad stuff sometimes, yeah?_

 _Anyway, drop me a line, tell me what you think. I love feedback ^_^_

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

 _ **[max's POV]**_

Furiosa didn't scold me. Not verbally, anyway. But her eyes – her emerald eyes were sharp and hard, her face blank and expressionless: the face of the Imperator. Her glare laid into me worse than any words ever could. I shrank away from her. Couldn't move far, though. The car at my back, my Interceptor, stalled me, and I pressed my skull against the rusted fender, teeth bared.

Then she was kneeling, reaching towards me. Her hands – too close! I shied to the side and guarded my damaged abdomen with a palm pressed flat over the dirtied bandage strapped there. Even through the fabric, I felt the heat of the wound, the wetness of fresh blood, and I knew it was bad, but I didn't really want to think about it because if I didn't think about it I could pretend it didn't exist.

She was stronger than me, though. As sweat dripped from my hairline and stung the cuts on my face, and tremors wracked my body, I didn't argue, knew it was useless. She took my jacket. I growled. She silenced me with those eyes again. I let my head thump against my Interceptor again. Rust flaked away from the sheet metal, blended with the sand below.

It was a hot breeze, but I still shivered when she peeled my damp shirt away from my stomach, chest, lifted it over my head, freed one arm from its sleeve and went for the other. I showed my teeth when her hand strayed too close to my injury again, but she worked gently. Threw my shirt to the side. I felt exposed. Didn't like it. She draped my jacket in the window of my car. I went for it, dragged it into my lap, but couldn't find the strength to put it back on.

"You should _not_ have ignored this," she murmured as she pulled the hastily-applied bandage loose. It stuck to my skin, glued with blood, gore, that oily stuff that sets in before a scab does. I grimaced as she pulled it away. Didn't want her to see. I put my hand over it again. The skin was hot, stretched taut over infection. My fingers covered it, came back sticky.

"Let me look." Furiosa's order was gentle, and it worked, because when she tugged my hand out of the way I let her and felt my fist thump down into the hot sand beneath me. Her face darkened. Her brows lowered. She swallowed hard, and though her expression remained blank as a sheet of undamaged sheet metal, her smoldering eyes betrayed her.

She was scared.

That's when I knew it was bad, and that it was only going to get worse.

My fatal mistake had been trying to pull the thin metal arrow out of my gut with my bare hands. I should've left it where it was and let the medic deal with it, but, damn, when you're in the heat of the moment you're not thinking about what you _should_ be doing. You see something sticking out of your gut, you're thinking _that doesn't feel too good,_ and then _that thing probably shouldn't be there,_ and then you're pulling it out of your body as fast as you can because instinct tells you to.

So I grabbed it and yanked as hard as I could.

Still not sure what the hell happened. Maybe it caught on something inside me, maybe it was already broke – but the thin metal shaft snapped off at the base, leaving part of it buried inside me. Couldn't get to it then. I tossed the scrap as far as I could and then dug into the entry wound with my fingers, slicking my hand up with blood, lots of blood, I _felt_ it in there, the busted-off piece of metal burrowed into viscera and resting in that little hollow right above my left hip. Thought about going for my pocketknife and slicing myself open to get it out, but I ended up dropping that idea because I didn't trust the steadiness of my hand at the moment. Didn't want to risk gutting myself.

I wasn't bleeding too bad, so I dug some bandages out of my car and wrapped myself up. That had been three days ago. Hadn't even looked at the wound since.

The arrow – it was one of those small ones from those crossbows the Buzzards liked to carry around. It had ended the fight. They'd gotten away with my spare guzzoline, which pissed me off more than the piece of metal buried in my gut. Luckily, they apparently weren't interested in my car, so they left it alone. Probably figured it didn't have enough fuel to get back to wherever I was headed when they'd crossed my path. It did, though, just barely. The Interceptor was literally running on fumes by the time I coasted into the outskirts of the Citadel. Walked the rest of the way. When I showed up, Furiosa lent me a wrecker so I could collect my car, and I hauled it back in and pretended nothing was wrong.

For three days I walked around the Citadel with the piece of metal inside of me, and for three days I felt fine. Mostly fine. If I ignored the way it _clinked_ against bone every time I put weight on my left leg. I'd get used to it. My body would close up the hole around it, seal it in, and it would become a part of me, and that would be that.

Now, though, I understood that wasn't gonna happen. My body was rejecting the foreign object. It needed to come out. That's what the medic said when she leaned over me with her headlamp sprouting a horn of light between her eyes. Her gray tail of tied-back hair swung at her spine when she turned away to rummage through the bag of medical supplies on the table next to the bed. Cheedo and the Dag were both present, since they'd both expressed interested in nursing, but I could tell that they didn't really want to be here. It was fine when it was someone else bleeding into the mattress.

Not fine, though, when it was me.

They stayed because as much as they didn't want to be here, they didn't want to leave, either.

Furiosa leaned on the doorframe. Arms folded, one leg crossed over the other, held cocked with the weight off it. It was hard to see her face with the light filtering in from the glass ceiling of the domed Vault. She hated this place, and so did the other women – it had been the place the Immortan had kept them as his breeding stock – but like it or not, it made for the perfect hospital with its natural lighting, climate-controlled atmosphere, decontaminated air, and endless supply of running water from the aquifer below.

I hated it, too.

It was a room of deathbeds.

Only those who stood little chance ended up here, but I _wasn't_ one of them. They didn't need to treat me here. I was only here so I would receive the best care they could offer, because Furiosa would never admit that she would be devastated if she lost me, and she didn't want to take any risks.

"I'll have to send for my tools," said the medic, partly to me but mostly to Furiosa. She slapped antiseptic into her hands, then brandished the bottle on me. I flinched when she grabbed my arm and sought the crook of my elbow. Her touch was freezing. She swabbed my skin as I gritted my teeth. "The sedative will take some time to set in. If I inject it now, I can operate as soon as my bag is brought to me."

"No," I found myself saying, trying to sit up despite the rippling pain in my gut. Saw my jacket laid over a chair, the key to my Interceptor dangling from the pocket, taunting me as it glittered in the light. Had to prove to myself that I was strong. I didn't belong here, not in the Vault, not waiting to die. Bare feet struck the cool stone floor. Tried to stand up. The Interceptor called me, drawing me out with the promise of the open road, the scream of pistons and supercharger, nobody chasing me, nowhere to go, nowhere to run from, just me, me and my car—

A hand clamped onto my shoulder. Not forceful, but firm, and my ass met the mattress again.

"Max," said Furiosa, and the sound of my name on her tongue made me stop, because I could tell she was fighting to keep her voice even. "Max, it's not going to get better."

I pressed a hand to my hip. The metal piece inside me grated against bone as though confirming her words.

I lay back down. Furiosa kept her palm to my shoulder, pressing me into the cot, silently offering assurance, and only when the artificial blackness of the sedative dragged away my consciousness did she lift her touch.

* * *

Darkness. Couldn't see. Everything cast blue in shadow, outlined in silver moonlight, save the small patch of unnatural light by my bed. An electric lamp. I turned so I could look at it, and startled. There was someone else with me. My hands felt for the pockets of my jacket where I kept my weapon, but my top half was bare, my hands slapped against sweat-soaked skin and nothing else, my jacket was gone, my guns were gone…!

"It's okay." The calm voice cut through the muddled fear, grounding me. Chair legs grated over the stone floor as she stood, took her place at my side. She twisted around and snagged something from the bedside table, something metal knocking around in the confines of a tray. Managed to prop myself up on one arm as I grunted and tried to shake the heaviness of the sedative out of my eyes. She angled the tray so I could see into it, and there it was, the rusty little piece of scrap that had caused me so much pain. Couldn't've been more than the length of my thumb.

My heart raced, my breathing came hard, and my jaw felt tired like I'd been clenching it in my sleep. I stared at Furiosa, who tossed the tray back down onto the table and stared at it for a second before speaking. "It was in there deep," she said.

Wanted to run those Buzzard blokes down, take _their_ fuel, stab them in the gut with a piece of metal and leave it there, see how _they_ liked it! Nothing I hated more than sitting in one place waiting for something to happen to me. Besides, I needed to look after my Interceptor, knew nobody else would. I'd left it parked out there, backed up against one of the spires, out there in the open! Something like panic wrapped cold hands around my spine. "My car—"

"Under watch," Furiosa said, adjusting the leather straps lashed over her shoulders that held her prosthetic in place. "Anyone who touches it loses a hand."

I relaxed a little bit, finding dark humor in her words. She was kidding. I think. She didn't lead like that, not by keeping her people in fear, but part of me suspected she had actually threatened punishment for messing with my car. Ah, well. If she was in charge of the machine, it was safe. I'd see if I couldn't get out tomorrow to take a look at it, just to make sure everything was squared away, ready for our next run. I was gonna go after those Buzzards. They were gonna pay.

Furiosa settled back down into her chair, kicked her feet up on my bed, and tucked in for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

I was able to stagger out into the daylight by myself that next afternoon, even though the medic repeatedly told me to stay in bed and lay low. Furiosa was gone, drawn away by her duties as leader of the Citadel, and I was out of sorts. Cheedo turned her back when she saw me trying to rise, pretended not to notice when I shrugged into my jacket and smoothed it over the folds of the bandage wrapped around my bare midriff. I was barefoot and got stared at all the way through the halls. Struggled to get up the stairs because my gut muscles hurt like hell, but I managed to get to the upper levels and found a seat on a lookout post. Nobody else was there, which was good. The sun warmed my bones, and I knew the air wasn't as pure out here as it was in the Vault but it felt better – all that open space, and I could stare at the horizon in every direction from this vantage point.

Could've been minutes, could've been hours I was up there, staring off into the distance and paying attention to everything besides the ember of pain in my side where the wound was. I remembered dragging myself up onto an outcropping of rock so I could stretch to my full length, take the stress off my lower back, but I didn't remember taking off my jacket and wadding it up to use as a cushion for my head. When I finally wrangled my wandering mind back down to earth, I realized I was delirious with thirst, and that they were probably looking for me down in the Vault, and if nothing else I didn't want to worry Furiosa, so I gathered my jacket into my arms and nudged my way back into the darkness inside the tower. Navigating downstairs was easier than up (I didn't have to fight gravity), and I was stumbling back into the Vault before I knew it.

Funny. Now that I was out of direct sunlight, I felt cold, but ignored it as I knelt next to the pool in the Vault amidst the bustling of activity in the hospital. I noticed then that they had given me the only room that offered true privacy. The others who were being cared for were sprawled all over the floor, on mats and cots, though most of them were empty.

When I tried to bring the water to my mouth, my jaw tightened up. The muscles released as quick as they'd tensed, and I drank deeply, splashed some water on my face and neck before hoisting myself back up and ambling back to my bed. Tired. So tired. Cold, too. So I pulled my leather jacket over my arms and fit the zipper together and dragged it closed even as it caught on sand stuck in the teeth.

"I was wondering when you were going to come back."

Cheedo's voice startled me when I settled onto the mattress. I glared at her, and the Dag's platinum blonde hair flashed in the shadows as she stepped into view. In her arms was a bowl – she was grinding some leaves to a pulp, their pungent scent made me wrinkle my nose and duck my face into a dusty lapel. "Should've seen Furiosa when she found out you were missing," she said, raising an accusing eyebrow. "Just about took poor Cheedo's head off."

"We're all lucky she found you upstairs." Cheedo jerked a thumb skyward as I swung my legs onto the bed and lay back. Tired. Wanted sleep. Wanted them to leave. Closed my eyes. If I ignored the them, they'd go away.

"Slept all day out there, did you?" the Dag questioned. "How can you still want a nap?"

I cracked an eye open and glared at her. She put a hand up, clutching her bowl close to her chest. "Okay. Okay! We're leaving."

Through the biting tinnitus constantly ringing in my damaged eardrums, I thought I heard them muttering as they left.

"Does he seem… sick to you? I thought the surgery was supposed to help him," whispered Cheedo.

"He doesn't look good," the Dag agreed. "Go tell Furiosa – I'll fetch Melita. Hurry!"

I flipped onto my right side – the side that wasn't damaged – and shut them out.

* * *

They kept checking in on me, all of them, even Capable and Toast who never set foot near the Vault. It pissed me off. I knew it was because they cared, and they were worried, but I didn't want them to worry because it made me worried and if I didn't see them worry then I wouldn't, either. Furiosa was the only one I really wanted around because she stuffed her emotions into a glass bottle and left it behind, and when I looked at her all I saw was solidity, something I could ground myself to.

"This isn't a good sign. His temperature is alarmingly high," said the medic, frowning at the gauge on the oral thermometer. She practically had to prop my jaws open with a vise to get me to accept it – not because I wanted to be difficult (at this point, I really didn't) but because I physically _couldn't_. The muscles along my jawbone were misbehaving. Tight. Not letting me open my mouth, not to drink, not to breathe, not to speak. Wasn't sure what to think. So cold, so tired, my body aching like I'd been thrown from a rig at high speeds. My heart beat fast, like the pistons in an overheating engine, and it was getting harder to breathe.

Furiosa nodded grimly. She was leaning in the doorway again.

The medic looked down at me, stuck the thermometer back in her bag, closed it slowly. "I've done everything to sterilize the wound itself but it's had too much time to fester. The infection's in his bloodstream, deep inside him now. There are a few remedies I can try but I can't promise that they will have any effect at this stage. In the old world…" She glanced up, skywards, to the ceiling, and the volume of her words fell off. "In another time, I could do more."

"You're not sure you can help him?" Furiosa's voice was cool, dark, barely a question – couldn't decide if she was asking the doc, or telling _me._

The medic shook her head and stood. "Unfortunately, I'm not, but Max is strong."

She took her leave.

Furiosa remained cemented to the doorframe.

I listened to myself breathe. It was strained. Muscles at my shoulder blades were rebelling now, too; I felt them tighten up, and release, and the next time they went taut it extended all the way to the front of my ribcage.

Capable's fiery red hair appeared at Furiosa's side, mercifully giving her an excuse to look away from me. "Did you figure out what's wrong with him?"

Furiosa gave a sharp nod. "I've seen this before, from similar injuries. They call it rust fever."

"Rust fever." Capable parroted the words, and I felt them knock around inside my skull like a stone caught in a wheel.

"Yes." Furiosa glanced back to me, just in time to see my body seize up again. "Tetanus."

* * *

All night, she stayed near. When I writhed in pain as spasms ripped me from the inside out, she was there, and when it got really bad she laid a hand on my shoulder until I collapsed again. Made sure my pillow stayed under my head, and if I twisted up the sheets she gently unraveled them from my limbs and smoothed them out again. Tried to give me water. I got maybe a few mouthfuls down when my jaw was cooperating with me.

If my temperature broke, I never knew it. Couldn't tell fever dreams apart from delirium brought on by hunger, or thirst, or fatigue.

Still, I fought.

I was stubborn, and if this rust fever wanted to take me, I was going to make damn sure it had a hell of a time doing so.

"Go get some rest." Toast floated into the room when the sun was throwing lances of light at us. I blinked at her, trying to bring her form into focus, but then the floor tilted and I lost all sense of balance, so I gave up and stared at the ceiling. I hated this place. Hated it.

"I'm talking to you, Furiosa."

The Imperator looked up from where she was seated, leaning forward with both elbows draped over her thighs, hands between her knees, head bowed. "Hmm?"

"The Dag told me you've been here since sundown." Toast nodded towards me. "I'll keep an eye on Max. You won't do him any good if you drop from exhaustion."

Furiosa looked towards me, pushing a hand through her close-cropped hair, and I locked her eyes with mine. She needed my permission to leave.

I dipped my head in her direction. _You can go. I'll be okay._

She stood. "You'll come get me if there's a change," she ordered, and then she ambled out.

I spent most of the day in that bed, partly afraid to move like it would trigger the spasms though I knew they were random, and partly because I didn't want to catch hell from any of the women for getting up again. The medic came and shot me up with something, some sort of tranq that took the edge off and gave me back some control of my muscles, so I was able to ignore the pain, which allowed me to focus on being claustrophobic instead. I'd been staring at the same wall for an eternity.

I picked up my jacket and fell out of bed. This time, though, gravity kept shifting – I realized that no matter how much I wanted to drag myself back up to the lookout, the stairs would kick my ass, so I settled for awkwardly stumbling over to the glass wall that made up part of the dome. Sat down heavily. Pushed some green vines out of the way. Laid my forehead against the glass, warmed by the sun, and watched the citizens of the Citadel go about their day while I was up here, confined by a failing body…

When Toast found me, she gave me an earful for getting out of bed but realized that the change in scenery was probably good for me, so she perched herself on the stairs leading up to the loft with a book in her hands. I slumped against the dome, eyes drifting shut, weighed down. I was sick of this. In the distance, I saw the road, and the black fumes of Gastown, and beyond that the expanse of unforgiving desert. I wanted to run. I wanted my Interceptor. Wait – the Interceptor! Was it safe? Yeah, I remembered Furiosa telling me it was. I exhaled heavily. My car would be okay.

I was still there, slumped against the glass and feeling the first twinges of pain as the tranq wore off, when Furiosa approached from behind. She still looked tired as hell. Changed her clothes, at least, and cleaned up a little. "How is he?" she asked Toast, who closed her book, repositioned the toothpick she was gnawing on.

"Well, I mean, he managed to walk himself out here, so I guess that means he's not getting worse," she answered. "No worse than yesterday, anyway. He's due for another dose if Melita was able to dig more up."

"Can you walk?" Furiosa at my side. I pulled my face away from the glass, stared at her, blinking, while her words sank in. My jaw was tight again. I nodded. She hoisted me up, draped one of my arms across her shoulders, and walked me back to the bed. Toast followed, made sure I was comfortable, then ran off to find the medic. She returned a few minutes later with the gray-haired woman in tow.

The medic prepared an injection while she spoke to Furiosa. "You don't have to stay. My people are here twenty-four seven. If Max's condition worsens, they'll send notice immediately."

"I know." The Imperator eased her weight onto the doorframe. She wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

"I don't care _what_ you have to do!" She had the poor War Boy backed up against the wall. "He needs an IV, so get me an IV!"

"But, Furiosa, we have maybe a dozen bags left. I'm sorry, but I was told we should save them for someone who has a better chance—"

"He's not going to _have_ a chance if we don't get it to him!" Her metal arm flashed in the light as she picked me out in the darkened room. I was half-conscious, and I'm sure if I'd been fully aware I would've understood what the heck was going on, but I wasn't and I didn't. All I knew is that I hurt. Bad. Dizzy. Hot. Cold. Tired. Pissed. Exhausted. Last night hadn't been any better than the first.

Nobody said anything to me, but I knew I was getting worse. Spasms came often, more severe, lasted longer.

The will to fight, it was there. Just didn't have the strength to keep it up.

"Get me an IV drip for him," Furiosa hissed through clenched teeth. _"Now."_

The War Boy, he knew better than to argue with the Imperator when she was like this, so he loped off with his tail between his legs. Furiosa braced her arm against the doorframe and breathed hard. So did I, but for a different reason.

"Furiosa," said a gentler voice. Cheedo.

" _What_?"

"I just wanted to check on Max."

"Fine. He's fine."

Silence. Then, "Furiosa… he's not, is he?"

A sharp _crack_ rang out as the Imperator drove a fist into the wall.


	3. Chapter 3

I'd seen transmissions seize up while cars were in motion, watched brittle suspensions fold and crack, listened to motors wheeze through cracked air intakes. Now I knew what it felt like.

Body burning. Hurt to breathe. Why did it hurt to breathe? Like somebody was stabbing me in the ribs, like that piece of metal was stuck in me all over again, dozens all over my body. My jaw clenched. Back arched. Shuddered. Grappled with the sickness, fought it off, weakening under its assault. So weak already. Hoped it would stop soon.

I knew there were people in here, and I knew they were talking about me, but I couldn't pull myself out of the spasms long enough to catch their full conversation. In rare moments of stillness, though, I heard snippets, and from those snippets I learned that the rust fever had caused several ribs to shatter under the rigid muscles they were attached to, and if the contractions couldn't be controlled… bad news. Downhill was the only direction from this point.

The medic was furrowing her brow at an old leather-bound journal whose spine was cracked in multiple places, and the weathered pages fell all over and fluttered in the breeze let in through the open window. I closed my eyes, focused on breathing. Heard her slap the cover shut, so I wrenched one eye open and saw that her face was hidden in her palms.

"So that's it?" Toast's voice, from the corner under the window. "You're giving up?"

Not me. It was getting harder to fight, but I wasn't giving up.

There wasn't anything left to do, if I understood the medic, who sighed, scrubbed at her face.

Furiosa's hip was pressed into the doorframe. Agitated. Could tell by the way her leg twitched against the ground, and the way her metal fingers rasped against each other.

The tranq was wearing off. It was like the rust ever was slowly becoming immune to it. That pissed me off. God, did my breathing sound that horrible, or was someone trying to turn over an engine that refused to catch? I felt the onset of another episode, so I clamped my jaw shut and told it to shove off before it took hold, but that took too much energy and I couldn't focus on breathing anymore, so I started to get dizzy, and then it passed and I collapsed again, panting like a dog. Cleared my nose with a huff of air. Heard myself moaning when my busted ribs tried to function normally. Someone pushed a hand to my shoulder, and at first I thought it was Furiosa, but when I dragged my eyes to the side I saw the slash of white that was the Dag's hair.

They were all talking over me, but I couldn't understand them, like I was trapped under a thick-walled bell jar. The ringing in my ears was deafening. Then, it let up, just long enough for me to catch a few scraps of conversation. I tried to sort them out. Made my head hurt, but I finally made some sense of it. Apparently, I needed something called _antitoxin_ , and it would take a good two days' run to find it and return to the Citadel.

Silence blanketed the room for a long moment. Then, Furiosa shoved off the doorframe, her face hardened into that Imperator mask, and she declared, "I'm gonna go get it – and he's coming with me."

* * *

I was on the floor again, for the tenth time in two minutes, on the rickety splintering floorboards of the massive outdoor elevator swinging from heavy-duty pulley systems high above. We were on ground level. Saw sand through the cracks. Dying sunlight beat me in the face. "You've gotta get up, Max," said someone. Toast, maybe, or Capable. Couldn't tell. Maybe it was my car, the Interceptor. It was calling to me, anyway. I could hear it. The familiar click of the starter, followed by the chugging ignition switch, and then the throaty exhaust (who needs a muffler?) and the whining supercharger.

It watched me through those headlights, and I heard the questioning pitch to the engine when I fell into the passenger's side door rather than taking the wheel. The women had seen to it already; there was a thick wool blanket on the floor, and a pillow, and they sorted the fabrics out around me as I lay my aching body back against the floorboards. Busted ribs grated like porcelain in a bag of meat, but I found the right position, comforted by the familiar embrace of my beaten leather jacket and the thrumming vibrations of my car.

But who was driving?

A metal hand rested atop the shifter knob polished by the grip of my palm. The wheel was wrapped in a battle-scarred fist, and Furiosa looked at me with pain in her eyes. Pain, like she suffered in my place. Pain, like her glass bottle of emotions was threatening to shatter.

Pain, like she'd come to the same conclusion that I had.

They were all crying, the women were. Each leaned in through the open window to say goodbye, each lingered for a few seconds before tearing themselves away. Their lips formed words I never heard but understood all the same, and I did my best to acknowledge them. It was hard, though, when my body wasn't cooperating with me. Even a simple dip of my head cost precious energy, energy I knew I couldn't afford to waste.

Furiosa coaxed my car into motion. The clutch was touchy – I'd tuned it like that so I could shift with little more than a twitch of my ankle against the pedal. I was impressed, though, because I was expecting to hear the grind of a burning clutch, but the Imperator understood. She eased into the machine's rhythm. My car tugged at the bit as she guided it away from the spires, then shot forward when she eased the accelerator to the floor. I knew this car well, well enough that I could tell you what piece of the dashboard was rattling at what RPM, and I felt when it settled back on its haunches and awaited the command to _run._ Full tank of guzzoline. Heard it in the floorboards. What were we waiting for? Nighttime was sucking the light out of the landscape. Full moon tonight, though. Didn't even need headlights. Everything was blue, drawn in thick brushstrokes and outlined by moonlight.

So tired.

The slight sway of the car as it rode over the top layer of sand lulled me. Something deep inside me started to slip. My eyelids drifted, weighed down by fatigue, but shot open when Furiosa cued up the supercharger and loosened the Interceptor's reins, let it lunge forward with newfound power. The car settled into an easy run, and I tried to smile.

Furiosa's façade broke then.

Green eyes cut from the road to me. Tears glistened at the rims; one broke away and streaked down the side of her face and dripped off the edge of her jaw. She didn't swipe it away, but kept both hands on the car's controls, and slowly looked back to the road.

Vaguely, I knew that my body was seized up again. It was weaker, though, not as devastating as it had been before, many times before. The rust fever's attacks were softening. I sensed, though, that something was very, deeply wrong with me. Couldn't feel much of anything. Not the broken ribs, not the place where the metal shaft had rested inside of me, not my head, not my chest…

The blue lighting began to shift to red.

It wasn't a bad red, like a sandstorm – quieting, like the first whispers of sleep, lapping at me, toying with the edges of consciousness. Voices, ones that hadn't spoken in quite some time, began to murmur in a distant corner of my mind. No yelling like they usually did. Just a dull bubbling of unintelligible words. Good. Didn't feel like dealing with any of them right now.

The Interceptor began to slow. I knew, because the supercharger changed pitch and deepened into a mournful howl as Furiosa backed the gears down. She'd gone off-course.

She knew.

She knew even before we'd left. We were never going to reach that antitoxin, wherever it was.

The redness took a little more of me. I knew, too.

She eased my car to a halt, left it idling, twisted around to look at me all curled up on the floor where the passenger's seat should've been. (Tore it out years ago – I was a loner, after all, never drove anyone around.) I blinked, had a hard time pulling my eyes open again. My limbs were getting heavier like someone was dumping lead into my bloodstream. Wondered if that was the rust fever. It was getting into its final position now. I felt it.

Something inside me gave way, and I suddenly felt scared.

How many men had I driven to this exact point, to look Death in the face? I envied them: none had been given time to think about it, not like I did. Maybe I deserved this kind of end. Didn't make it easier, though – I didn't _feel_ ready. _No._ I dragged in a breath. Distant pain. Very distant. There was a hand on me, then another, and I became aware of Furiosa right beside me, cross-legged in the back with me with her head bowed. It wasn't fair – I was the one suffering, why did she have to hurt from it, too? I couldn't stand the thought of being the cause of someone's heartbreak. I wasn't that important.

Was I?

The redness darkened, faded to black at the very edges.

"I'm so sorry, Max," she breathed, then murmured something about not being able to help me the same way I'd helped her. I was confused. Why was she apologizing? She hadn't been the one with the crossbow. She wasn't a Buzzard. Their fault. Not hers. She was next to me now, stretched on the floorboards, tears carving straits through the dirt and grease on her face. One hand behind my head, the other resting gently on my chest, like she could will my body back into working condition.

My car cried, too. The idling engine hitched once, twice, then carried on its uneasy rhythm.

So, so tired now. My eyelids dropped, narrowing my vision to slits. Furiosa's touch grazed my face. My lungs screamed. I was drowning, deprived of air, able to draw just enough in to make me crave more, nothing else. No relief…

The redness, though; it whispered promises of relief, and just to tease me it shoved numbness further into my consciousness, trying to pry mind away from body. I was so tempted to let it take me, but I kept shoving it back, fighting it, surfacing through the waves lapping at me. Furiosa watched with agony in her eyes.

I wasn't ready to leave her.

She shushed through her teeth, stroked a hand over my forehead, pushed it through the hair I never bothered to tame. There was an awful rasping sound – me? I couldn't pull air into my lungs. Each mockery of a breath was even shallower than the last, and my ribs were aching from the piston-like rapidity of it all. Muscles tight, spasms weakening, weakening but not relinquishing their hold on me… I wanted to keep fighting. I tried. I tried damn hard.

"You're okay, Max," she soothed, because she saw that I was struggling to hang on to the thread still left in me, but it was fraying, fraying fast. Some part of me knew exactly what was happening. The tetanus had finally turned my respiratory system on me, telling it to suffocate me inside my own body.

I couldn't do this to her.

I knew I would lose, but I fought on. Consciousness eluded me. Haze set in. Furiosa's face was all I saw, framed in my blackening vision. She was crying. Made my heart ache. I blinked, slowly. Heart pounded, my blood cells screamed out for oxygen. In the air, I smelled exhaust – the Interceptor's. Still heard the engine, comforting white noise.

"It's all right," Furiosa murmured.

I looked up at her. Vision narrowed. Fading slowly. Tired. So damn tired.

She blinked, face split by a sad sort of smile, both hands to my face. Held me like that for a second. Whispered something I'd never hear, never understand. Then she straightened up, eyes softened. I waited. Needed her words. This time, when I tried to breathe, I couldn't, not at all, but I held on, held on one last time for her.

Her breathing hitched, her shoulders jerked. Smiled again through her tears.

"Stop it." Her voice was low. "Don't worry about me."

She leaned forward until her face was close to mine, pressed her lips gently to my forehead, inhaled deeply. I managed to drag air into my lungs, but it felt like fire, but I held it in anyway, let it smolder inside my chest.

"Max," Furiosa whispered, hands finding my face, her metal fingers cool against my cheekbones. She looked up. Gathered her strength, even as mine faded. I looked to her, and waited.

She breathed, and her words were broken, and she dipped her head. "You don't have to suffer any more. It's okay, Max." She gently thumbed my face. "You can let go."

I stopped fighting.

 **-END-**


End file.
